A brand pays fifteen creators this quarter. Through a marketplace, the fifteen invoices are one card statement and the videos arrive in one dashboard; contacting the creators directly, the brand sends fifteen briefs, collects fifteen tax forms, wires fifteen payments and chases fifteen delivery dates. The question of which route is cheaper in hours is the one the general guide to agencies and marketplaces answers. The American question underneath it is which route puts which form on which desk in January, because the IRS attaches the year-end filing to how the money moved, not to what it bought.
The rule is short. Payments a brand makes directly to a creator are the brand's to report on Form 1099-NEC. Payments made by payment card or through a third-party network are reported on Form 1099-K by the payment settlement entity, and the IRS instructions say they are not reported on the brand's 1099-NEC. What does not move with the money is the responsibility for what the video says, and this guide takes both halves in order.
The year-end file, by route
Direct: the brand is the filer
Paying a creator directly, by check, ACH or wire, makes the brand the payer the IRS instructions for Form 1099-NEC describe. Before the first payment the brand collects a Form W-9, which gives it the creator's taxpayer identification number; after the year ends, for each creator whose payments in the tax year reached $2,000, under the instructions for tax years beginning after 2025, it files a Form 1099-NEC and sends the creator a copy. A creator who is not a US person supplies a Form W-8 BEN instead, as the getting-paid guide explains from the creator's side. Fifteen creators direct is fifteen W-9s in the brand's files and up to fifteen 1099-NECs in January.
Through a platform: the settlement entity is the filer
The same instructions state that payments made with a credit card or payment card, and certain other payment types including third-party network transactions, must be reported on Form 1099-K by the payment settlement entity and are not subject to reporting on Form 1099-NEC. The IRS's page on Form 1099-K names who sends it: payment card companies, payment apps and online marketplaces, which must file it with the IRS each year and send the creator a copy by January 31. It also gives the thresholds. A creator paid by card gets a 1099-K from the card processor no matter how many payments or how much they were for; a creator paid through a payment app or online marketplace, a third-party settlement organization, gets one when payments for goods or services through the platform exceed $20,000 in more than 200 transactions, and may get one below that. The page adds the sentence that matters on the creator's side: whether or not a Form 1099-K arrives, the income is reported on the tax return.
What the brand still keeps
The filing moves; the record does not. A brand that pays through a platform has no 1099-NEC to file for those creators, and that is the paperwork the route buys, but it still has a contract, an invoice or an order, and a license for each video, and it still knows what it paid for. The hiring guide describes why the brand's brief and the shape of the relationship are evidence in the IRS's contractor test whichever route carries the money: a platform between the brand and the creator does not change who directed the work.
| What the brand is comparing | Contacting creators directly | Through a marketplace |
|---|---|---|
| Form collected before payment | Form W-9 per creator, or W-8 BEN outside the United States | Held by the platform for its own filing; the brand pays the platform |
| Year-end filing | Form 1099-NEC per creator from $2,000, filed by the brand | Form 1099-K filed by the payment settlement entity; card with no threshold, third-party network above $20,000 and 200 transactions |
| Document that grants the rights | The license the creator signs with the brand | The order and the platform's terms, which say what the creator granted |
| Who briefs on claims and disclosures | The brand | The brand, through the platform's brief |
| Responsibility for the endorsement under the FTC Act | The brand | The brand; delegation does not relieve the advertiser |
| Hours per creator | Sourcing, contract, payment, follow-up, all the brand's | Sourcing and payment on the platform; the brief and the review still the brand's |
What does not move with the money
The responsibility for the endorsement
The Federal Trade Commission's questions and answers on endorsements say that a company is ultimately responsible for what others do on its behalf and that delegating part of a promotional program to an outside company does not relieve it of responsibility under the FTC Act; the agency comparison in this cocoon reads that answer in full. A platform in the payment chain is an outside company in that sense. The brief that lists the allowed claims and the disclosure, the check on the delivered video, the action when something is wrong: those stay with the brand on either route, and the creator program guide describes what they contain. The platform can carry the brief; it does not carry the responsibility.
The document that grants the rights
The rights question moves the same way: the creator is the author, and an exclusive right or ownership needs a signed document, as the ownership guide sets out. A marketplace order that says "full usage rights" describes what the platform's terms say the creator granted, and a brand reads those terms before it assumes exclusivity or ownership; contacting the creator directly, the brand writes the license itself and has the creator sign it.
What direct costs, and what a platform removes
Going direct costs hours that do not appear on any invoice: finding the creators, which is never free, and which is a production question in the markets this cocoon's city guides describe; writing and negotiating fifteen contracts; collecting fifteen W-9s; making fifteen payments; chasing fifteen deliveries; filing in January. What a platform removes is most of that, in exchange for a fee stated in its terms and for a license shaped by those terms rather than by the brand's own template. What usually stops a brand from seeing the trade clearly is that the fee is visible and the hours are not; a brand that prices its own hours finds a volume below which the fee is cheaper and above which the direct route is, whereas the responsibility is the same size on both.
When each one wins
The direct route wins for the long relationship: a creator the brand works with monthly, on the brand's own license, with the W-9 collected once and the 1099-NEC part of a routine. The marketplace wins for discovery, for the first batch with new creators, for a brand without a procurement team, and for the year-end file it takes off the brand's desk. A brand that changes route for a creator mid-year changes the filer for that creator from the next payment on, and nothing else: the brief, the checks and the license are the same size on both sides of the platform.
The brief for choosing
- Decide who will be the payer for each creator this year, because that decides who files: the brand on Form 1099-NEC, or the settlement entity on Form 1099-K.
- Going direct, collect the W-9 or W-8 BEN before the first payment and put the 1099-NEC on the January calendar for every creator at $2,000 or more.
- Through a platform, read the terms that say what rights an order grants, and ask for a signed license when the campaign needs more than they give.
- On either route, keep the brief, the claims list, the disclosure wording and the review of the delivered video in the brand's hands; the FTC's answer is that delegation does not relieve the advertiser.
- Price the brand's hours honestly before comparing them with the platform's fee, and revisit the answer when the volume changes.
Sources
- IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-K
- IRS, Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (12/2026)
- IRS, About Form W-9
- Federal Trade Commission, The FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking
- U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 1: Copyright Basics
Checked on 21 September 2026. This guide is not legal or tax advice. Where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source prevails.
